This is a free event, sponsored by HeadLand Writers Festival, South East Arts, Tathra Hotel & Candelo Books.

WHAT: The Quest for Eden-Monaro: Eleanor Robin OAM PhD in conversation with Kristy McBain MP.

WHEN: Monday 16 May @ 7PM

WHERE: Tathra Hotel

The book, The Quest for Eden-Monaro – A core sample of Australian democracy is a biography with a particular lens examining what makes a good, popular federal Member of Parliament. It does this in telling the stories of two representatives who each held the seat for 25 years or more, Sir Austin Chapman (incumbent 1901-1926) and Allan Duncan Fraser CMG (over two terms between 1943 and 1972) before Eden-Monaro came to hold the reputation, over a 50 years period, as Australia’s national bellwether.

The book carries an interesting Foreword by Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History at the Australian National University, and endorsements by veteran psephologist Malcolm Mackerras and Member for Eden-Monaro, Kristy McBain. Prof Bongiorno calls it ‘politics in the raw’ and includes the line ‘It is not, however, the familiar ‘top-down’ variety but a politics from below, a story of ordinary people and those they choose to represent them’. Chapman and Fraser’s political careers, of course, are set in the context of national politics where both were key players during critical eras in Australian history.

From Eleanor Robin

About me, I live quietly at Narooma, am elderly, but have enjoyed a long writing career – beginning as a cadet on The Canberra Times, reporting for The Sun News-Pictorial from the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery; after having three children, working in information sections of the Federal Public Service, including managing the information program of the Australian Heritage Commission and being a major writer for the Australian Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. I hold a Doctorate in Philosophy (History) from the University of Tasmania and received an OAM in recognition of my services to the conservation of Australia’s natural, Aboriginal and cultural heritage. My last book, Swanston Merchant Statesman (also pub. ASP) was short and long-listed for a few awards and is still selling OK in Tasmania and Melbourne.

Contact the host of The Quest for Eden-Monaro: Eleanor Robin OAM PhD in conversation with Kristy McBain MP